Discussion Which would you prefer.................

solid for sure... MUCH faster performance than the platters.

My computer has a 256GB solid state as the main C drive, and a 1TB mechanical drive as the D drive for storage space

 

Depends on the purpose. While SSDs have gotten better for long term storage, I would still want a spinner for storage. For the host OS or for my VM guests, SSDs.

 

This^^^

Conventional drives usually give some warning of impending failure. SSD's just quit.(my experience anyway). Most folks don't realize that SSDs degrade every time you use them. Each bit has a finite amount of read write cycles. Excellent articles on the internet explaining why.

 

I agree. I keep all my design files located on the mechanical drive. C drive is the SSD and that's where the performance boost is felt

 

Solid State!
It's surprising how often the Hard Drive is the bottleneck that slows the whole system down.
For me, switching to SS made everything faster.

My two HD crashes were on platter drives with no warning (that I noticed). Interesting about them slowing down, I didn't know that, if I notice that, I will get a new SS and switch the one I use now as a redundant backup.

 

Although SSD's excel in just about every aspect when compared to HHD's, I believe the longevity of SSD to be considerably less than that of HDD when used for storage of data that is written and overwritten a lot. In other words, what Wild West said is certainly worth consideration.

My computer has three drives, all SSD. The drive that my operating system and software runs off of (Samsung) has been working for over 5 years now with not one problem. My backup drive (Western Digital) has also been a solid performer for the last five years. However, the drive that I store my files on over the years and write a ton of data to hasn't faired as well. I just had it replaced for the second time in five years.

I ran a Samsung for almost four years with no problems. Then late last year I had to replace it. We went with SanDisk. Boy was that a mistake. The first drive we put in didn't even function correctly out of the box, so a second SanDisk drive was put in and the first was returned for a refund. The 'good' SanDisk drive didn't even make it 11 months before crashing a few weeks ago. This time we put in a Patriot drive to see if it performs any better as they were recommended by our tech. If this drive lasts for a shorter term than expected I may be going back to HDD for my file storage but I'll continue to use SSD for my OS and software because they are just insanely fast. My computer can do a full reboot in about 30 seconds and programs open up much faster with SSD.

If I could recommend any one brand of SSD, I'd say go with Samsung. I took a chance on a Patriot this time around because my computer tech loves them but I know from experience Samsung drives are consistent performers. Do not buy SanDisk as I believe you will be disappointed in the long run.

 

Depends on what the failure is/was. Sure some could cause a failure that the user may not notice. However, at this time, SSDs will be working and then not working at the drop of the hat regardless of what the failure is.

Neither one takes the place of having good, consistent, frequent backups.

I had one mechanical hard drive (overheating) that was so slow, I was able to access it via CLI and retrieve all the info without raising temps up way to high over several sessions to retrieve the data.

 

General consensus....OS and programs on SSD, file storage on HDD. BUT...they're getting bigger and cheaper, so not a bad idea to go full SSD.....just have a backup always writing to an HDD, preferably external.

 

oldish data but still accurate

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, I very well might be; If a SS drive crashes, it's more likely, cheaper, and quicker that the data can be recovered, than platter drives, if taken to a specialist, correct?

 

Those read/write speeds for platter HD are max & based on drives that have extremely fast rotations.
My gaming Cheetah HD was (from what I remember) 1,200 rpm, was very expensive and had a small storage, 7,200 was typical for hard-drives

 

Sending it off to a specialist for data recovery, I have never known to be cheap, nor really quick and always the caveat that they may not get everything.

Now, having said that, I haven't look into that too much. I run frequent and multiple backs on all of my data (both production and config files), everything else I just reload (benefit of being on the platform that I am on), so I really haven't investigated that in the last few yrs. You cannot beat the quickness of having your own backups compared to sending it off anywhere. And doing your own backups, if one did have that crash, more then likely that paid for you having those backups right then and there. Certainly if ever had more then one.

 

Little fact-iod about failed HDDs. Before sending it off to a clean room, try doing a PCB swap on it. Several times I've saved my customer thousands using a $30-$40 board purchased on eBay.

 

I switched to 100% SSD a couple years ago and would never go back. I do use an HDD for backup though.

 

Yep ... Like many others have said ... SSD for your operating system and programs, HDD (7200rpm) for storage. (saving your files)
The HDD drives are cheap enough so it makes sense to add one on. It's not necessarily to save jobs but anything else on your work station that you save/download.

 

Don't forget to try the freezer trick first!
SSD all the way for OS and programs, most art is stored on HDD, most things are backed up to the external. Why an external? I don't know, the only crashed drive I've experienced was a seagate external that cost about $700 to send off and get back another hdd with everything moved to it.

 

External NAS I agree all the way. Just an external HD, cooling (or lack thereof) is going to be your enemy over time. More so if it's always connected, but eventually it'll get even the sporadically plugged in ones as well.